


Let each other go

by ILoveFANFic



Series: An angel and his hunter. A hunter and his angel [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel makes new friends, Castiel realizes Dean deserves better, Castiel realizes he deserves better, Coda, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, M/M, Making Hard Decisions, Moving On, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Season/Series 15 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 17:44:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveFANFic/pseuds/ILoveFANFic
Summary: Castiel leaves the bunker. And he does move on.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: An angel and his hunter. A hunter and his angel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652266
Comments: 23
Kudos: 114





	Let each other go

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of disclaimers. 
> 
> I never thought I would write a canon complaint fic. But The Episode™ literally destroyed me. I couldn't function until I let all my thoughts go in this fic (then RL happened and it took me a week to find the time to edit). So this fic is basically an exercise in therapy and self-care on my part. 
> 
> Just in case the tags and the summary aren't clear enough, Castiel and Dean do not get back together in this. Castiel moves on, like he said he would at the end of SPN 15X3. I don't know if I will ever add to this. I might, depending on how good (or how bad) the writers do in the rest of the season. 
> 
> But just so we are absolutely clear, I do NOT hate Dean. Castiel doesn't hate Dean in this either. He does realize both of them deserve better than what they got so far and that the answer, at least for now, is to go their separate ways. 
> 
> Finally, I didn't rate it because I honestly have no idea how to rate this. There is no sex or violence. But if I had to rate based on how much I cried while writing it, it would probably be Explicit. 
> 
> If anyone wants to give this a go in spite of all of the above, feel free to come cry with me in the comments!

“Something went wrong Dean, you know this, something always goes wrong.”

“Yeah, and why does that something always seem to be you?”

Castiel had lived for millennia. And the last part of his existence in particular, ever since he had come down to earth, hadn’t certainly been devoid of hurt and despair. Yet no previous hurtful moment, not even losing Jack, not even having to smite a demon wearing his body and claiming to be him, had torn him open like hearing Dean say that did.

He could also see Dean had regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. What he didn’t know was whether he regretted it because he had said something he didn’t truly think out of anger, or because he hadn’t intended to say that aloud, even though he thought it was true.

Ironic. He used to be able to read Dean so much better than this. Considering his unwillingness to vocalize his thoughts, fears, and emotions, Castiel had realized early on that he needed to familiarize himself with the hunter’s non-verbal cues just as well as with his verbal ones. Because most of what Dean communicated - often unintentionally - was in his facial expressions, his gestures, the stiffness of his shoulders, the tight line of his lips. And in his eyes. Eyes that used to tell Castiel all he needed to know.

Not anymore, apparently.

“You used to trust me, give me the benefit of the doubt. Now you can barely look at me”

Dean did look at him then. But it was despondent, confrontational. It wasn’t to show he had heard his plea and was ready to give him the forgiveness he so desperately needed and craved. Even though Castiel knew what happened hadn’t really been his fault more than it had been Dean’s or Sam’s. Dean blamed him though. And that, as always, was more than enough for Castiel to blame himself. And to do anything, including the most aberrant or reckless actions, to earn his forgiveness. Like when he had accepted to go to hell with Belphagor when Dean basically ordered him to do so earlier in the crypt. Castiel did what Dean said, and pretended that it didn’t tear him apart that the hunter hadn’t even paused to think about his escape route out of Hell if the plan worked. Maybe Dean would have forgiven him, had it worked. And he also pretended he didn’t feel his entire being crumble when he told Belphagor Dean and Sam were just using him, didn’t really care for him, and realized that seemed to be equally applicable to himself these days.

“My powers are failing and I've tried to talk to you, over and over and you just don't want to hear it...”

There is was, the eye roll. Dean hated the very idea of putting into words what was eating him up from the inside. “Talking is overrated, Cas. Something happens, you deal with it, you move on”. That was what Dean would always say to him. Except, some things you can’t deal with, apparently. And you can’t move on from.

“... you don't care. I'm...dead to you. You still blame me for Mary.”

It hurt so bad to realize it was true. That he truly was dead to him. And to have confirmation.

Dean nodded. He nodded.

So did Castiel.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything left to say,” said Castiel before turning around and heading for the stairs that would lead him to the exit of the bunker. To the exit of Dean and Sam’s life.

But he stopped when Dean started speaking again.

“Where you going.”

It wasn’t even posed as a question. It sounded more like a statement. Again, Castiel hated that he no longer seemed to be able to read Dean. He didn’t know if he sounded resigned, as if that was a dance they had danced too many times already, or relieved, having wanted to ask Castiel to go for some time now and grateful he wouldn’t have to after all, or scared, because he still held a modicum of affection and trust for his ‘best friend’ somewhere in the recess of his heart and didn’t want to see him go.

“Jack’s dead, Chuck’s gone. You and Sam have each other.”

He put off turning around to face Dean for as long as he could. He didn’t want to look at him and find that it was indeed relief the emotion he would see reflected in those green eyes. Relief at knowing Castiel was finally vacating the spot in Dean’s life he had desperately clung to for more than a decade now.

But he turned around and somehow found the strength to look him in the eyes when he said “I think it’s time for me to move on.”

He needed Dean to look at his face then. And fully realize what he was saying. That if Dean let him go this time, if he didn’t reply with “Yes, Cas, Sam and I have each other, but you are family too”, Castiel would walk away. Never to return again.

Five seconds. He waited, looked at Dean, pleaded with him with his eyes for five long seconds. Dean stared back, but didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything to stop him.

And Castiel walked away.

And he hadn’t been able to stop replaying the entire conversation in his mind since that day.

Not that he’d had much else to occupy his thoughts. He had been sitting in the same spot for days now. Once he was outside the bunker, he started walking. He just walked, and walked, and walked. He didn’t even know for how long. Or in which direction he was going. Then he came across a beautiful open field at sunrise, stopped and took a seat. His powers were failing, but he still had enough left not to feel the hunger, thirst or cold, for now. He dreaded the moment that would no longer be true and he might have to find a way to live on earth as a human again. He had failed spectacularly the first time. Maybe this would be his redeeming chance.

So here, all alone, with only nature around him as far as he could look, his thoughts ran wild and he was powerless to stop them or put them in order.

Dean, like every other time, hadn’t stopped him.

In a way, Castiel's decision had been preemptive. He hadn’t waited for Dean to ask him to move out this time. He couldn’t have survived that a second time. So he did the one thing he could survive, even though just barely. He left before he was asked to.

He couldn’t stay there any longer. It had taken him quite some time, years in human standards, to realize that what he had defined as ‘a more profound bound’ between himself and Dean was in fact a feeling angels - good, obedient soldiers - like Castiel were not prepared to deal with. Love. All consuming, romantic love. Which was reciprocated, Castiel knew that much. He could feel intent, and he could see it in Dean’s eyes. But he could also see his intention to never pursue those feelings. For whatever reason that was, Castiel had decided long ago he would always respect Dean’s choice. Always. He had remained by his side, loved him, and tried to do everything he could for him, and Sam, and this world. Dean was the person he loved, yes. But he was also his home, together with Sam, and this world.

It had been far from easy to get there. The blind obedience he had been trained in caused him to make a lot of mistakes at first, and listen to Uriel, and Zachariah. But even back then, to see this world torn to shreds and those two boys with it - yes, even the boy with the demon blood who had grown to be one of the two most important people in Castiel’s millennia-long existence - was inconceivable. And so he fought, and died, and fought again, and died again. He had bled, screamed, killed, felt despair, rage, hopelessness, fierce protectiveness for those boys and this world, while watching them do the same.

And Chuck had recently showed them they had been fooling themselves. That they had been pawns in one of the many chessboards Chuck had created and destroyed around the universe.

When Dean had told him so, asked him what was real, Castiel had replied “Us. _We_ are real’.” And Dean had turned his back on him and left.

In spite of everything, Castiel still believed that. That they were real. That his love for Dean Winchester was real, as was his profound affection for his brother. Although of a vastly different nature, Castiel’s love for Sam Winchester was just as fierce.

‘Hi Cas, this is Sam. Look, I don’t know what happened, okay? Dean said you finally decided to move on? Call me, please. Please, Cas, just- I need to hear from you.’

That was one of the many messages Sam left on his voicemail after he had walked out of the bunker. The first one, in fact. The one he kept listening to, until his battery died. That had been hours ago. Maybe days.

‘Finally’. Dean had told Sam Castiel had ‘finally’ decided to move on. So his had been the right choice, after all. Dean was actually relieved to see him go. And Castiel couldn’t blame him. He was too. That was not something he had expected. He expected despair, the deepest sadness, hopelessness and helplessness. And felt those, abundantly. He didn’t, however, expect to also feel a trace of relief among all those other feelings. But he did, God help him, he did - ironic how language, in its finiteness, was bound to make him say and think things he knew to be false. God couldn’t, wouldn’t, help anyone. He had never truly wanted to, apparently.

Castiel had no idea what he would do now. He knew he couldn’t stay here forever, no matter how beautiful it was. He did look like a human, after all, and if other humans were to come across him, they might get suspicious of a man sitting in the same spot on the ground for months, possibly years, without needing to sleep, drink, eat or relieve himself.

So he stayed there for a few more sunrises and sunsets, enjoying the unmistakable beauty of this world, the perfection of its natural rhythms, the inexorability of the alternation between light and dark, and everything that went with it. The most perfect example of the fact that there were things in life that you, quite simply, couldn’t change. That no matter how much one might dread the arrival of a new day, the sun would always rise. That no matter how hard the day had been, the sunset would always be there at end of it, to soothe you with its outstanding beauty and unreproducible colors and celebrate with you the fact that you had, in fact, survived that day, and could rest now, and regroup, and go back to fighting tomorrow. That life went on, even in the face of utter, complete destruction. Life went on. As impossible as that might feel sometimes, life went on.

So did Castiel.

He got up and started walking.

Again, he wouldn’t have known how long he walked. He didn’t keep track of the passing of time, of days and nights, sunrises and sunsets. He just kept walking. Through open fields, farmlands, small towns, larger ones.

Until he got to a town where he read ‘Help wanted’ on the window of a clean-looking and cozy diner. He didn’t know anything about cooking, he barely knew anything about eating, but he remembered clearly, from his days as a human, that a job was the first step. A job meant money. Money meant shelter and food and clothes. Everything else would follow. Castiel still didn’t know whether staying on earth was what he’d do in the long term. He also had the option of going back to heaven. But he wasn’t ready to leave earth just yet, that much he knew. He was still coming to terms with having left Dean and Sam behind. Leaving earth behind too would be the final step. And it was way too soon for that.

So he entered the diner, determined to ask for information about what kind of help was wanted and see if maybe he could be the proverbial man for the job. Sue, the kind lady that owned the diner, told him that there were actually two spots available. One as a dishwasher and one as a waiter. His people skills were not the best (they were no longer rusty as they used to be, but still not exceptional), and the dishwasher job was minimum wage, while the waiting job would be paid slightly more, in addition to the tips. He concluded that he wouldn’t need much, he was on his own after all and didn’t even need food for now, while the slightly more lucrative job could make a difference for a human. That’s why he told Sue he believed he’d be more suited for the kitchen, which earned him a raise in her eyebrows, which he had come to realize was meant to express surprise. He assumed she hadn’t heard many white men say things like ‘I am more suited for the kitchen’ in her life. He also told her he would be able to work non-stop for the 16 hours the diner would be open, which caused Sue’s eyebrows to disappear in her hairline altogether. She asked him if he was sure more than once, and insisted he would have to take a one-hour lunch and dinner break and help himself to the diner’s food, like the other employees. He caught himself just in time before replying he didn’t need to eat, politely thanked her for her generosity and resolved he would dutifully eat something at every break, so as to not raise suspicions. Tasting molecules wasn’t his favorite hobby, but it was a small, necessary evil in this case. Castiel had faced and survived far worse.

He started right away and spent the first seven days trying to learn as much as possible and cause as little damage as possible. He spent the nights after the diner closed standing in the alley outside its back door, waiting for it to open again and ready to be the first to go in. With his first paycheck he went to a Walmart and bought some clothes, aware enough of humans’ reactions now to know that it had escaped no one’s notice he had been wearing the same clothes for seven days in a row. He also bought a bag where he could put his old clothes - the idea of getting rid of his trench coat and white shirt and blue tie was inconceivable - that he would leave behind a dumpster in the back alley during the day when he was working and go check was still there at night when he finished his shift. The bag meant a lot to him. He supposed it was because it contained the only remnants of his life as a Winchester. The only things that were his. His brain was quick to remind him that he had, in fact, inherited them from Jimmy and suggest he should draw the inevitable conclusion that there hadn’t been anything in Castiel’s life that was truly his. His clothes were not his own. His son hadn’t really been his. His love was not his, and never would be.

Sam.

Sam had been truly his. His friend. He felt yet another pang to his chest thinking of him, like every other time. Thinking that he hadn’t even got to say goodbye to the younger Winchester, that he was hurting about Rowena when Castiel had left, that he had sounded so worried about him in his voicemails, and that Castiel hadn’t been able to return any of them yet. Buying a charger for his phone was what he planned to do with his second paycheck, so he could get in touch with Sam and let him know he was carrying on, and he was sorry he hadn’t said goodbye, and he would always love him as the best friend he had ever had and would ever have.

And that’s exactly what Castiel did. Seven days later, second paycheck in hand, he bought the cheapest charger he could find and had enough left to rent a very cheap motel room not too far away from the diner. Not in the first motel listed in the phone book, of course. That would have been the choice to make based on the Winchester’s system. But he wasn’t lost. And he wasn’t a Winchester. Not anymore. ‘Not ever’, his brain helpfully provided.

At first he debated with himself if renting a room was truly necessary, but he concluded it would be easier to have a safe place where he could leave his bag and charge his phone, and where he could stay when the diner was closed. If someone realized the back alley was where he spent all his nights - and he suspected Sue had already started putting two and two together - the questions would start, and Castiel knew enough about interacting with humans now to know that was something he should avoid as much as possible and for as long as possible. So rent a room he did.

‘Hello Sam. I am sorry it took me this long to get in touch with you. My phone battery died and it took me some time to find a way to recharge it. I am- going on, I suppose. I am good, or, well, not too bad. I am so sorry, more than I can say, that I left without having a chance to say goodbye to you. But know I think about you often. You will always be my best friend. How-, uhm, how are you holding up? I would love it if you could let know how you’re dealing with what happened. Just- don’t worry about me, OK? I’d rather you focused on your own wellbeing. I hope I’ll hear from you, Sam. Bye.’

That became Castiel’s new normal: he worked, and he kept in touch with Sam.

Several weeks passed in a blur of identical days. He would work at the diner, wash dishes, have lunch or dinner with his co-workers and talk with them a bit, go to the motel when the diner closed, make sure to prepare a different outfit for the following day, and then he would spend his nights sitting on his bed thinking, or watching documentaries on TV, or listening to Sam’s recorded voice over and over, or trying to think about what kind of reply he wanted to give him, or reading one of the novels his limited funds allowed him to buy. All second hand, paperback books, but he found he loved them all the more for it. He supposed he could see himself reflected in those copies. They were used up, battered and cheap. But they still retained their power to tell stories.

His work at the diner was going flawlessly, which maybe shouldn’t have surprised Castiel, but it did. It was true that he had more experience in dealing with humans this time around than he’d had in his days as Steve, and that this job required far less interaction with people than the one at the Gas-n-Sip, but Castiel still couldn’t help but notice the subtle differences. The conversations he had with his co-workers were mostly successful, the number of references and figures of speech escaping his comprehension significantly less than in the past.

He got along with two of his co-workers in particular.

The Mexican cook, who, quite ironically in Castiel’s opinion, was called Ángel, had told him that he was “an OK guy, for a white dude”, and complimented his ability to follow orders from an immigrant without so much as batting an eye. Castiel couldn’t quite grasp, not fully, why the fact that Ángel was an immigrant should undermine his status as the head of the kitchen, but he supposed it had a lot to do with humans’ obsession with race and borders, especially these days. He also suspected that his ability to follow Ángel’s orders without ever questioning them had a lot to do with his training as a soldier of heaven. Thanks to Dean, Castiel had learned to question orders when they didn’t seem to make sense, but when they did - and the cook’s orders were scarcely ever unreasonable - going along with them and doing his best to comply still gave him a deep sense of satisfaction that could only be explained with an ingrained need to serve and be useful one only gets with the kind of programming he had been subjected to as an angel.

The other one was Maggie, the waiter who had been hired after Castiel accepted the dishwasher job. She was a college student, working this job to make ends meet, and a very nice person. Polite, professional, always quick to greet people with a smile and put them at ease. She was much better at the job than Castiel could have ever been. Very often she spent her lunch breaks with him and he noticed that she had increasingly relaxed around him, until one day she outright confessed that she had been intimidated by him at first but then had realized he was “just a nice, polite, reserved person, who was totally respectful and never made her feel like he was undressing her with his eyes”. Castiel took that as confirmation he had finally mastered the art of not staring at people. That was far easier than admitting that he, quite simply, wasn't interested in staring at anyone who wasn't Dean Winchester.

Listening and replying to Sam’s voicemails was instead something Castiel craved and dreaded in equal measure. He made sure to never pick up the phone when Sam called and always called him back randomly, days later and at odd hours during the night, to maximize the chance Sam wouldn’t pick up. For one thing, he knew that phone conversations could be easily traced down. For another, and Castiel was honest enough with himself to know that was the real reason why he was behaving like that, the angel knew that he might not be able to deny Sam if he pleaded with him to go back over the phone. Sam had done that more than once in his voicemails, asked Castiel to either go back to the bunker or at least meet him “somewhere neutral and hear him out”, and Castiel had almost caved more than once. He knew that it was only the fact that hearing Sam asking that of him in a voicemail and not having to give an answer right away was what had prevented him from going along with the hunter’s requests so far. If he had to say no to the vocal equivalent of Sam’s puppy dog eyes during a phone conversation, he knew he wouldn’t be able to. So he did his best to avoid putting himself in that situation. He did reply to each voicemail though. He always reassured Sam that he was in a comfortable situation and that being away from the bunker was for the best. He never dwelled too much on the parts of Sam’s messages related to how Dean was dealing with it. They were never too detailed to begin with, a clear sign that either Dean wasn’t talking to Sam about it or had asked him not to talk to Castiel about it, and Castiel, for his part, didn’t want to put Sam in the position of having to act as a referee between his friend and his brother. He even went as far as telling Sam things only Castiel would know about specific conversations the two had had over the years to reassure him the voicemails were actually being sent by the angel, and not by someone impersonating him, like Asmodeus had done. Castiel couldn’t help but feel some sort of hollow feeling in his chest when that reminded him that neither Sam nor Dean, the best hunters in this world and - they knew for a fact - in other worlds too, had realized Castiel had been kept prisoner in hell for months and that the person talking with them was not, in fact, the angel. Castiel supposed it was easy to let certain details slip through the net, if you didn’t pay attention. If you didn't _care enough_ to pay attention. 

That, too, was happening more and more frequently.

Feelings.

Maybe it was all the time he was spending with regular humans who had no idea about the supernatural. Or maybe his powers were failing quicker than he expected. Or maybe, more likely, it was a combination of the two. But he was feeling emotions way more frequently than before. Way more strongly than before.

And he knew that most of the emotions he was feeling were not good ones. After Jack had brought him back from the Empty, Sam had once told him that he had been seriously worried about Dean for the first time, because Dean was depressed. Not angry, not raging, not blind with the need to destroy everything he could, which was bad, Sam knew, but at least meant Dean was still willing to keep fighting. No, Dean had been depressed for the first time, unable to fight, uninterested in anything and anyone. That conversation had left Castiel very rattled, and so he did what he always did in similar situations. He did research. He read about depression, its causes, its symptoms, how the support system of a person dealing with depression could and should help.

And he remembered reading somewhere that the opposite of depression was not happiness, but vitality. The need and desire to _do things_. And Castiel realized he didn’t feel any need or desire to do anything these days. He was going through the motions. He was often tempted to just lie in bed for days on end and stay there, maybe sleep. Another thing he had been doing more and more frequently lately. He couldn’t help but wonder if all that meant he was, in human terms, depressed. He knew for a fact that, in angelic terms, he was certainly suffering from a sense of purposelessness. At the same time, he wasn’t interested in changing anything. At least for now. He was OK with just going through the motions.

It was a totally human experience to give him pause and force him to confront the reasons why he was feeling like that. His humanity was really catching up with him faster than he thought, apparently.

It was a Thursday afternoon and Castiel was busy at the sink, while Maggie was taking a short break in the kitchen, given the absence of costumers at the front. That didn’t usually happen, the diner was actually doing well, but it did sometimes, on days like Tuesdays or Thursdays and in the moments far enough from lunch and not close enough to dinner. And when that happened, the waiters never failed to recognize that for what it was: a golden chance to take a rest, get off of their feet, drink some water, eat something, and avoid talking with anyone for a few precious minutes. Maggie in particular liked to spend those moments in the kitchen, eat the quick snack Ángel or one of his helpers were always more than happy to make for her and listen to music. And Castiel really liked Maggie. She was a good soul and always so happy when she realized Castiel remembered something she had told him in a previous conversation. He assumed that made her feel paid attention to, listened to, _seen_. And he had been in enough situations where he had felt the exact opposite that it wasn’t difficult for Castiel to imagine that being able to feel like that had to be really nice indeed. So Castiel made it a point to always listen when Maggie talked, and file away the things he realized, thanks to her verbal or non-verbal communication, were particularly important to her. And music was important to her, that much was clear.

That wasn’t uncommon with humans. Castiel had learned that music was vital for some of them. It had started with Dean’s obsession with classic rock of course, an obsession he only fully understood when he realized those songs made Dean feel safe, brought him back to easier times in his life, were linked to memories he cherished and could recall to find the strength to keep going when things got rough.

So when she almost shouted “Omg, I LOVE this song!” with a huge smile on her face and eyes dancing with excitement, Castiel started paying attention. This song was important to Maggie, and Castiel liked Maggie.

The initial notes made it clear it was a rock song. ‘Dean might like it,’ Castiel thought. Thinking about Dean was something he simply couldn’t help doing, no matter how hard he was trying.

When the leading voice started singing the lyrics though, it was like a bucket of ice had been dumped on Castiel’s head. Such a _human _reaction.

_I can see every tear you’ve cried_

_Like an ocean in your eyes_

_All the pain and the scars have left you cold_

Dean.

That was the one word his mind _screamed_. Castiel had spent more than a decade watching the ocean of Dean’s eyes, and seeing it getting deeper and deeper, colder and colder, with every tear he had let fall, and all the tears he hadn’t allowed himself to shed, all the pain he and the people he loved had gone through, all the scars that pain had left him, and them, with.

_I can see all the fears you face_

_Through a storm that never goes away_

_Don't believe all the lies that you've been told_

Dean’s fears had never passed unnoticed, not to Castiel, attuned as he was to the hunter’s emotions and reactions. And Dean had so many of them, how could he not, when catastrophic events kept piling up, one after another, exactly like a never ending storm. Even though things had calmed down now. Castiel supposed this was the closer it had ever been to the life Sam and Dean had before the angels descended on earth. Still, Dean had had to fight so many apocalyptic events for more than ten years in a row that he just couldn’t have been left without fears. Some of which did stem from all the lies he had been told, and had ended up believing. Things would have been so different if Dean hadn't believed those lies, Castiel knew. But he had. Beautiful, righteous Dean believed in each and every one of them, had internalized them, until some had become true. Self fulfilling prophecies, humans called them. But they weren't. Castiel had more experience than he would have liked with prophets and prophecies. And those weren't prophecies. They were lies. Lies Castiel himself had told Dean, and that had left him with the fear of not being important enough to deserve the truth from the angel, and the fear of not being able to trust him like he thought he could. Castiel had brought that to himself, he couldn’t blame Dean for that. Lies John Winchester had told him, about what it meant to be a real man, a real hunter, a good son and brother, and that had left Dean with what was undeniably the hunter’s biggest fear: failing to protect his brother, and save as many people as he could in the process, without ever losing sight of who the good and the bad guys were. As if the distinction was always neat and clear cut.

_I'll be right here now_

_To hold you when the sky falls down_

Ironic. That’s what Castiel had always tried to do, ever since he rebelled for Dean. Always be there for him. But how could he have been the one to hold him, when he himself was the reason why the sky had literally fallen down, and all its angels with it? That had been one of the times, certainly not the first or last, Castiel had let Dean and Sam down in a way that was unforgivable. No wonder then that Dean had finally reached his limit and couldn’t find it in himself to forgive Castiel for all of his mistakes now.

_I will always_

_Be the one who took your place_

Ah, yes, that was a constant in their relationship, wasn’t it? Castiel had lost count of all the times he took Dean or Sam’s place, without so much as a second thought, as the target of Lucifer’s wrath at the Lawrence cemetery, as a patient in a psychiatric ward, as the one barrier standing between the two hunters and any danger they might be facing. And he never, not once, regretted it. He did, however, regret all the times one of them had done the same in return. Taken Castiel’s place to save him. And there had been many. Too many.

_When the rain falls_

_I won't let go_

_I'll be right here_

That had always been the one thing Castiel felt in his heart and soul he would never, ever do. Let go. Until that day in the bunker. He had never thought he would be the one to let go. He had never thought the moment would come when he realized him letting go and going away was far better than him refusing to let go and staying right there. But that moment _had_ come, hadn’t it? He’d had to let go and leave. For everyone’s benefit. Especially Dean’s. It was always about Dean first and foremost, after all.

_I will show you the way back home_

_Never leave you all alone_

_I will stay until the morning comes_

That had been what Castiel had so foolishly believed he could do. Help the Winchesters fight the good fight and find a home and a family that would never leave them, so they could start again, like a morning jumpstarting a new day. And Castiel had so foolishly believed he could be part of that home and that family. But he couldn’t. He had failed on both counts, and with that failure the chance of being part of Sam and Dean’s home and family had disappeared for good.

_I'll show you how to live again_

_And heal the brokenness within_

_Let me love you when you come undone_

Castiel’s pipe dream. The one he had never dared confess, not to a single soul, not even to himself. But it was pointless to deny it now, wasn’t it? If he could have had one single dream come true, it would be this one. That his one, true love would let Castiel, as imperfect and undeserving as he was, help him rebuild what a life of hunting had broken, that he would allow the angel to love him, unconditionally, even when - especially when - he was coming undone. But a dream was all that was. Only a dream. Because Dean had never allowed that. And he never would. Dean had come undone countless times after falling in love with Castiel, yet he had never allowed himself to seek out the angel’s comfort and draw strength from his love. Dean was coming undone even during their last conversation. But he didn’t allow Castiel to get closer. He pushed him away. And away Castiel had gone. Had had to go.

_When daybreak seems so far away_

_Reach for my hand_

_When hope and peace begin to fray_

_Still I will stand_

And that, right there, was the reason for it. The reason why he’d had to go. Because he was supposed to be the one who would help Dean through the darkness, including the literal Darkness, and hold his hand until the next sunrise would come. He was supposed to be the rock, unmovable in the face of danger, Dean could always lean on. But he didn’t, and he wasn’t. And in his determination to reach both goals, hundreds of thousands had died, either because of Castiel’s own doing, or because he, simply, couldn’t prevent it.

All these thoughts kept circling around in Castiel’s mind for days after that afternoon. 

How could he not feel depressed and purposeless, when all of that was taken into account? When he considered all he did and didn’t do? All the goals he had and failed to reach, no matter how hard he tried? All the devastation those attempts had left behind? All the hurt and disappointment he caused to the people, the person, he loved the most?

And thinking about all of that also brought back to the surface something he had read about when researching depression. Unhealthy coping mechanisms. He was a textbook case, wasn’t he? Just like Dean, with his drinking problem, and his stubborn refusal to communicate and seek true, real comfort and support, his self-loathing and his tendency to blame himself or others for things none of them could control. 

Those were his thoughts when he heard a knock on his motel room door one night.

It was after midnight and he wasn’t expecting any visitors. He had been very careful not to tell anyone where he was staying.

He approached the door carefully, angel blade at the ready. Everything had been quiet ever since he left the bunker, but he wasn’t naive enough and hadn’t grown complacent enough that he didn’t expect the supernatural to come knock on his door one day. Apparently that day was today. 'Literally,' Castiel thought before releasing a disbelieving huff. 

He opened the door a crack, ready to face whatever was on the other side. 

Or not. 

“You got your angel blade handy, I see you didn’t forget your hunter training while living your quiet life in Pleasantville.”

Sarcasm, of course. His favorite mechanism of deflection. Some things never changed.

“Hello Dean.”

“Are you letting me in or what?”

Sarcastic and confrontational. Splendid.

This wasn’t going to be pleasant, whatever ‘this’ was, but there was no sense in trying and avoid it, so he moved aside and let Dean in.

“Nice abode you have here.” 

The sarcasm was dripping from his love’s words at this point. 

“It does its job.”

“I had to track you down, you know? I tried praying to you, but you never replied.” 

“I told you Dean, my powers are failing. I can no longer hear prayers. A muffled sound was all I could hear one time or two.”

“Still you could have taken an educated guess and assume it was me or Sam.”

“I did, but I also thought it could have been you mentioning my name while talking, not necessarily praying to me. After all, it seemed clear to me when I left that everyone involved thought it was the best solution to our problems.”

“Did it?”

“What do you need Dean?”

He hated the flash of hurt he could see on the most beautiful face in the whole of creation.

“I don't _need_ anything.”

Castiel chose to not reply to that. There was too much he had to say about that. 

“C'mon buddy, you're gonna make me say it?”

‘Buddy’. Of course. That’s what Castiel was. Dean’s buddy. His ‘best friend’. 

Still, Castiel withheld a reply.

“I am here to take you home.” 

“To the bunker?”

“Of course, where else?”

“The bunker was never my home.”

‘You were, Dean,’ Castiel thought, ‘you were my home, always have been. But not anymore.’

“Now wait a minute, Cas, you know that ain't-“ 

“No, you know what? I left to avoid this exact same situation. Where you and I waste time and energies running in circles while expertly dodging any discussion about the real source of the problem. So now I am gonna tell you what I have to say about it.”

“Cas-“ 

“And you will show me the respect I deserve and listen without interrupting.”

Dean’s eyes got wider then. Just a fraction, and just for a moment. But it was there, the surprise. Maybe he too, like Castiel, was suddenly remembering the first time the angel had told the hunter he should show him some respect. It left such a bad taste in Castiel’s mouth to realize his words had been vastly more correct then than they were now. That the respect he had earned back then was so much more than the respect he deserved now, after all that had come to pass. 

“I was watching a film last night, and I thought about you. It was set on a plane, and I couldn’t help but think about your fear of flying.”

“I don’t-“ 

“Save it, Dean. And please don’t interrupt.” 

Petulance was, had always been, and would always be, at home on that face, with its expressive eyes and pouty lips.

“This plane was about to take off, and the crew reminded passengers to put their own mask before helping others, should the oxygen masks automatically drop. And it struck me then. I don’t even need to breathe, but that’s what I have felt like for a long time, for years. Like I couldn’t breathe. Yet I was still trying to be all over the place at once, helping everyone and with everything, never thinking of putting my own mask first. And I-“ 

He put his hands on his hips, looked down and sighed. Trying to prevent the tears from falling down. _Such. A. Human. Reaction_.

“I was wrong in doing that. I made so many mistakes. Because I simply couldn’t fathom the idea of something happening to you, or Sam, or this world.” 

Petulance had left room to confusion, and concern. That’s what the frown on Dean’s face and the uncrossing of his arms meant, Castiel knew. 

“And I am not saying that you were idly sitting on your hands. What you’ve been through, what you survived, is appalling. Forty years in Hell, Purgatory, losing Ellen, Jo, Charlie, Bobby, your father, Mary, Jack, Rowena, Kevin, even Sam, over and over. I can’t even imagine what all of that must have felt like, mostly because you won’t talk to me about it.”

A not so surprising eye roll and a scoff was what that last sentence got him. Some things really never changed.

“But one thing I know. That whatever we did in reaction to any of those things, whenever we tried to help each other, we ended up doing the opposite. We are not good for each other, Dean. We prevent the other from breathing.”

Castiel had seriously thought no stretch of time had ever been longer than the five seconds he spent in the bunker waiting, hoping, for Dean to stop him and not let him go. Once again, he had been wrong. The time Dean spent staring at him now, almost trying to see his very soul, with his mouth slightly open (‘Surprise,’ Castiel’s brain told him, ‘that’s surprise’) lasted a lifetime.

“You once said you would always come when I call.”

“I did, and I would. Always. Just like I would always be the one to take your place. Or Sam’s. But you don't need to call me anymore, Dean. Jack is dead, Chuck is gone, the last apocalypse has been averted. For the first time since we met, the world seems to be like it used to be, rather than constantly being on the verge of destruction. It’s a world where hunters are more than enough to keep the supernatural at bay. You no longer need the service of an angel. And like I said, my powers are failing anyway, so I couldn't be that much of assistance. How did you phrase it once? “Without your powers you are basically a baby in a trench coat”?” 

Dean averted his gaze then, and looked down at the floor. (‘Shame, that’s shame.’) 

“It can finally be like it used to be, like you have always wanted. You and Sam saving people together from regular monsters. After all, there is nothing and no one you ever cared about more.”

Dean had raised his gaze when Castiel had started speaking again, but he once again looked down when the angel said the last part, and that was all the confirmation Castiel needed. 

Maybe that was the reason why Dean had never made a move. Because he loved him enough, apparently more than he had loved Lisa, to not condemn him to always occupy the second place, the first place being securely occupied by his brother.

And Castiel knew he had done terrible things and for a long time he thought himself unworthy of redemption. But he had paid the price for those actions, was still paying the price by losing the love of his life. Because Castiel had never fooled himself. He had never loved and would never love again the way he loved Dean Winchester. 

And maybe it was his rapidly approaching humanity that was making him feel this way. Or maybe it was living here, working with Sue and Ángel and Maggie, and realizing it was actually nice, very nice in fact, to be praised and sought after not for what he could do, but simply for who he was. For the first time, he was feeling like he could maybe have more of that. Sometimes he even felt like he kind of deserved more of that. 

And, who knew, if he became content enough that the Empty would come for him, parting ways now would also mean one less occasion in which he would disappoint the Winchesters, having hidden from them his deal with the mysterious entity. A deal he had made without a second thought, because he would have done anything to save his son's life - he would have made the same choice even knowing how things turned out with his son in the end. But that he also made knowing he would never truly be happy, not having to live next to the love of his life every day without ever being able to act on those feelings.

Castiel was struck again by how things had changed.

Back then, he would have never thought he’d one day want out of that situation. Now he couldn't think about anything else. About how he deserved better, in spite of all his mistakes. About how _Dean _deserved better. How he didn't deserve to live his days feeling guilty because he knew he was the one who couldn't act on his love for Castiel and give Castiel what he desperately wanted. Because just as much as Castiel knew Dean loved him, Dean knew Castiel loved him back, of that the angel was sure.

“So now I’m asking you to never call again. We need to let each other go, Dean. It might not be what we want, but it's what our lives need. You and I, we opened a rupture in each other's existence and heart as big as the one Chuck opened in that cemetery. Not out of vengeance, like he did, but out of too much love and loyalty. But we did open it nonetheless, and it's getting bigger and bigger. And if we are to ever close it, a sacrifice as big as the one Rowena made is required. We need to let each other go.” 

Dean’s eyes were shining now. With the tears he was desperately trying to keep inside. ('Heartbreak, that’s heartbreak.')

Castiel could relate. His own heart was shattering in his chest. He had read in one of his novels a sentence that summarized this moment perfectly: ‘Sometimes you have to make a decision that will break your heart but will give peace to your soul.’ 

“So what will you do now, Cas? Where will you go?”

Right. He could no longer remain here. He had to move, somewhere unknown to Dean, so it would be easier for the hunter to try and honor his request to never call - or visit - again.

“I don’t know. I might look for a job at a Gas-and-Sip, I already know how to do that, sort of.”

Seeing Dean flinch at the mention of his life as Steve was not pleasant. Castiel hated it when he hurt Dean. But he also needed to drive his point across, and make him understand, truly understand, how unhealthy their relationship was.

“Or I will find another job as a dishwasher, that’s what I have been doing all this time. Or I’ll try and find a job somewhere where they make honey. Or I might return to heaven, use the little energy I have left to keep it powered a bit longer. I honestly have no idea. I only know I am not going back to the bunker. And I am changing my name and number, so you won’t track me down again. But I ask you to please not even try. I know I don’t have a right to ask anything of you, Dean. But I still will. I will ask this of you. Let me walk out that door and don’t try and find me. Let me move on. And move on yourself. It’s time.”

Castiel took a few seconds then. To look at that beautiful face he loved so much.

He loathed to see the devastation there. To know that there was no other way out of this but to go their separate ways for good.

But he also knew this would be the last time he would ever see the love of his life. The amazing, flawed, perfectly imperfect human he had rebelled, killed, and died for.

This was when the light would fade from the rest of his existence.

So he would forever cherish these precious last memories. Because as haunted as they were right now, those green eyes will forever be the safest of havens for Castiel. To know that creation had managed to reach perfection when those eyes were made will forever give him hope. To know that those eyes had ever looked at him with love and adoration would always give his whole existence, every single thing he’d had to go through, meaning.

As much as it hurt to see, the pain written all over his love’s beautiful face was finally something Castiel understood without a shadow of a doubt: it was proof that what he had said to Belphagor did not apply to Castiel as well, after all. That Dean might have used him, and his powers, whenever he needed. But that he also cared about him, in spite of everything. Truly cared about him. Dean Winchester loved him.

Castiel gave himself time to catalogue all of this, and then he started walking. Again. Past Dean, toward the door. 

Dean didn’t stop him. 

*****

‘Hello Sam, this is my new phone number, I’d appreciate if you could please not tell Dean I have one, or that we talk. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d rather not have to lose touch with you too, and you know it’s better this way. So tell me, my friend, how are you?’

**Author's Note:**

> The "The opposite of depression isn't happiness but vitality" reference is taken from Andrew Solomon's TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share/transcript). 
> 
> The "Sometimes you have to make a decision that will break your heart but will give peace to your soul" reference is taken from the LessonsTaughtByLife account on Twitter. 
> 
> The song is "Right here" by Ashes Remain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHpuJWLSOgM), which is the ultimate Destiel song imo. I got to listen to it thanks to one of my absolutely favorite people and best friends, betweenheavenandhell, who also happens to be my very own music dealer: the playlists she makes for me on Spotify are amazing. Thank you babe, I love you <3.


End file.
